Swimmers battle Red Robins in tight dual meet
Abby/Colby victorious in six of 11 races
The Colby/Abbotsford swim co-op nearly pulled off an improbable victory over the Antigo Red Robins on Thursday in the co-op’s first Great Northern Conference dual meet of 2021.
“This was the first conference dual of the season, and hosted some very close races for the two teams,” head coach Monica Tesmer replied. “Antigo came out on top of a very close, fast paced meet 74-72.”
The score was even more inpressive considering Abby/Colby was down to just six swimmers when they took on the Red Robins last week. Victories in six out of the eleven races helped the numbers challenged co-op stay neck and neck with their hosts as the meet went down to the wire.
The co-op was also swimming in a different pool than what they were used to, with meters instead of yards used to measure distance.
Nonetheless, the co-op got off to a quick start, as the relay team of Zanza Haemer, Olivia Krause, Hailey Meyer and Lilly Graun placed second in the 200-meter medley in 2:49.10.
Olivia Johnson picked up the co-op second runner-up result in the next race, the 200-meter freestyle. Johnson completed the race in 3:09.31.
Two Colby/Abby swimmers finished in the top three of the 200-meter IM event. Krause and Meyer were second and third in times of 3:29.55 and 3:43.33.
The co-op swept the top two positions in the 50-meter freestyle. Senior Lexi White captured the first of her two individual victories with a time of 31.37 seconds, and Graun was second in 34.29 seconds.
White followed this up with a victory in the 100-meter butterfly in a winning time of 1:28.54. Chloe Chihlar added another victory when she took first in the 100-meter freestyle in 1:11.12. Graun was fifth in the same race in her time of 1:24.75.
Olivia Johnson swam the grueling 400-meter freestyle race, and placed third in the competition in 6:37.75.
The team of Cihlar, Haemer, Krause and White was first in the 200-meter freestyle relay, defeating Antigo’s relay team by nearly twenty seconds with a winning time of 2:13.22.
Chloe Cihlar grabbed her second victory of the evening in the 100-meter backstroke in 1:24.87. Cihlar’s teammate, Zanza Haemer, touched the finish shortly after, placing second in 1:29.38.
The co-op added more points when Krause and Meyer finished third and fourth in the 100-meter breaststroke. Krause was third in 1:52.83, and Meyer was fourth in 1:53.08.
The team of White, Graun, Haemer and Cihlar ended the night by topping the Red Robins by nearly ten seconds in the 400-meter freestyle relay with a winning time of 5:11.59.
